In the beginning of the ad her pupils seem to dilate when she opens the package and then as she bites into it her eyes turn towards the left (emotional thinking not rational thinking) then it zooms in on a side view of her face looking left (again left emotion) and her pupil constructsand then dilates in such a way that I've seen head injury patients present and the the rest of the ad is her eating the candy while seductively smiling and looking directly at the camera with very dilated eyes.

Dilation is usually associated with desire or attraction.

I watched it a bunch more times to see if I could find anything else interesting.
I saw a facial expression that I would associate with a woman having an orgasm.
The seductive smile was accompanied by her licking her lips.
It is interesting to me that candy ads are beginning to go in this sort of subliminal (i hate to say subconscious because it really is in your conscious mind) sexual content. It is as if the advertisers are trying to build additional associations of actual sex with their product. This seems really unhealthy in a society that already has high obesity.

I would really be interested to understand the total mind fuck that is this ad.

You can think of it as 'Off the Wall'. I like to think of it as 'Out the Window'.

@dELogic I know what they are doing and why they are doing it. I want to know about the psychology of how and why it works.

@notageek I think there are a lot of people here who would be willing and able to engage in a conversation on this. It has deep roots in several topics including human psychology, human nonverbal communication and induced visual cues, human sexuality, marketing, ethics of subliminal messaging, etc. All this without mentioning Democrats or Republicans. This is in fact the sort of intellectual discussion people have been begging for on this forum.

In the beginning of the ad her pupils seem to dilate when she opens the package and then as she bites into it her eyes turn towards the left (emotional thinking not rational thinking) then it zooms in on a side view of her face looking left (again left emotion) and her pupil constructsand then dilates in such a way that I've seen head injury patients present and the the rest of the ad is her eating the candy while seductively smiling and looking directly at the camera with very dilated eyes.

Dilation is usually associated with desire or attraction.

I watched it a bunch more times to see if I could find anything else interesting.
I saw a facial expression that I would associate with a woman having an orgasm.
The seductive smile was accompanied by her licking her lips.
It is interesting to me that candy ads are beginning to go in this sort of subliminal (i hate to say subconscious because it really is in your conscious mind) sexual content. It is as if the advertisers are trying to build additional associations of actual sex with their product. This seems really unhealthy in a society that already has high obesity.

I would really be interested to understand the total mind fuck that is this ad.

You Da Man !

interesting in-depth analysis - thanks !

edit:

it's ridiculous how far they're going in their short commercials - there's no other way than pushing lots of subliminal buttons in that short amount of time

At first I tried to analyze it and, what I thought I felt was boredom, I think was actually submission. The fact that I was unable to watch the video over and over before I knew what I was looking for suggests that, in the context of a male with supreme confidence, I was disconcerted. When I went back through it though, I noticed a lot of the old sales techniques that my pops taught me.

The first several seconds of the commercial, the model makes no eye contact whatsoever, instead, he tosses the candy around confidently, and then flicks the wrapper (playing with his food, he is confident that it can't escape him because he is too dexterous to miss the catch.) He doesn't make any eye contact, or even show any interest in the audience until the precise moment when he opens the wrapper and that instant he raises his left eyebrow in a sort of smirk. "I've got a New York Peppermint Patty; where's yours?"

Then his pupils constrict, but not while making direct eye-contact with you. He has blue eyes and I think the girl did too (Edit: I checked, she does.), so, I wonder if the reason this constriction happened was to highlight the cool mint flavor, since blue is a 'cool color'. I don't think the advertisers would have wanted him to be making direct eye contact when this happened because this would be interpreted as a dislike for the viewer.

Last thing you see, is the 'Power Gaze' looking directly into your left eye. He leans forward, licking the chocolate off of his thumb as he gazes for a short time, directly into the viewer's eyes. I'm not sure if the trickery is that I was gazing right, but when I focused back in on his eyes at the end, I noticed I was using my left eye to do so. (I am a left eye dominant shooter, so I might just be doing it myself, someone else who shoots right eye should check this out and report.)

One thing that my dad taught me was that when you are presenting facts for a client to make a decision on, look them in the right eye; and when you press for the answer at the end of the presentation..."What do you say?" Hand extended out turned slightly upwards (too much and it seems like supplication) to indicate "I am at your service, looking out for your best interest." Leaned forward, "I am confident and in control." Gazing (google Power Gaze) directly into their left eye with a genuine (the kind where your eyes look friendly) smile. The left eye appeals to their emotion and you are presenting yourself as a confident and strong ally. It is hard to turn this down.

That is what the very last shot of the model looked like to me.

I also noticed that most of the commenters on youtube who identified themselves as female, or at least sexually interested in males, were enamored with him.

There are lots of theories about kinesics and other aspects of body language. Some have worked for me (e.g., mirroring and matching, pacing and leading); while I have found others to be useless distractions (or worse -- you can give somebody the willies by using an abnormal amount of eye contact because you're consciously thinking about it).

Interesting. I've never paid that much attention to any advertisement. Peppermint Patties are one of my favorite candies, but I don't have any greater interest in one now than I did prior to watching the commercial.

On a related note, I have to give Carl's Jr. credit for not being at all subliminal._________________lolgov. 'cause where we're going, you don't have civil liberties.

At first I tried to analyze it and, what I thought I felt was boredom, I think was actually submission. The fact that I was unable to watch the video over and over before I knew what I was looking for suggests that, in the context of a male with supreme confidence, I was disconcerted. [...]

I also noticed that most of the commenters on youtube who identified themselves as female, or at least sexually interested in males, were enamored with him.

Submissive / disconcerted? Why not just sexually disinterested in men? It doesn't seem like an ad where causing that reaction would be desirable. Yes, you might gain something in the female / gay audience, but you'd also lose something in the male / lesbian audience._________________lolgov. 'cause where we're going, you don't have civil liberties.

Submissive / disconcerted? Why not just sexually disinterested in men?

Maybe. I considered that, also. I think it was disconcerting because I was powerless to 'throw' him (obviously you can't throw him with any sort of feedback since he is a video recording). The power gaze gave me the willies, and I'm not sold that eating peppermint patties is in my best interest...So it is hard to see him as an ally? Clearly there is a reason for there to be two separate ads. I wonder which one aired more.

@BK, I've seen people do the power gaze for too long. I'll do the other thing where I get distracted and fail to engage in the conversation and yet make good eye contact and then promptly forget everything that was said to me; failed chemistry that way. I am really good at reading visual cues, partly because I know intellectually what to look for and partly from experience. (I would be interested to see how negotiating in patient care is different from other situations where the client is less stressed.)

Yeah, the subtleties of body language kind of go out the window when somebody is in pain or overwhelmed by anxiety. And, you might not read their pupils correctly if they have been given a dose of barbiturates.